


One Hundred Duck-Sized Hippogriffs

by KrysKrossZee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Hippogriffs, Marauders, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), POV Male Character, POV Third Person, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:09:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23399002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrysKrossZee/pseuds/KrysKrossZee
Summary: Sometimes your friends get you the best presents in the world, and sometimes you hsve to wonder what on earth they were thinking.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 18
Collections: Cards Against Muggles Crack Fest





	One Hundred Duck-Sized Hippogriffs

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first proper attempt at writing crack. And it made me remember why I tend to stick to writing Next Gen characters, but I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Thanks again to R1ver_S0ng and Jo Cay for betaing this fic and to Shuns for helping generate the ideas.

“Hey Petey!” James’ overly enthusiastic voice floated over from the portrait hole, prompting Peter to set his comic book down. Those words always preceded something potentially dangerous.

“Hi?” He turned to face James, only to see that both he and Sirius were carrying boxes.

“Would you rather fight one hippogriff-sized duck or one hundred duck-sized hippogriffs?” James asked as Sirius set his box down. “Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

“Uh, one hippogriff-sized duck,” Peter replied after a moment of consideration.

“Oh,” came Sirius’ reply. “We were sure you were gonna go with the duck-sized hippogriffs.”

“What? Why?” Peter only just made it to his feet before Sirius had opened his box and tiny hippogriffs of all colours came streaming out.

Peter squeaked and jumped onto the sofa he’d been sitting on as the hippogriffs stretched their wings and called to each other in a sound that he could only describe as a squack. The noise sent chills down his spine.

In the meantime, James had opened his own box and a load more of the feathery creatures bounded into the Gryffindor Common Room. Peter wished that he could somehow get higher but he didn’t think that he could make it from the sofa to the fireplace, so here he was: stuck.

“What in the name of the Whomping Willow?!” Remus’ voice caused Peter to whirl around and lose his balance.

He tumbled down in what felt to him like slow motion. Within seconds he was being pecked all over his body by small but surprisingly sharp beaks. He scrambled to get to his feet as quickly as possible while his three best friends roared with laughter.

Once on his feet, Peter cowered behind Remus, making sure that there was a whole other person as a shield between himself and the tiny monstrosities.

“What have you two done this time?” The tall brunet asked as one of the hippogriffs jumped up onto Sirius’ shoulder.

“We got Wormtail an early birthday present,” James answered with a shrug.

“And Christmas, and Easter, and Halloween, and - well, you get the picture,” Sirius continued, grinning from ear to ear in a way that made Peter uneasy.

“Why would you think that I would want _these_ things as a present?” Peter asked, an eyebrow raised as he watched Sirius nuzzle his head against the hippogriff on his shoulder. Were they part cat?

“Who  _ wouldn’t _ want one?” Sirius asked as he gestured at the hippogriffs who were now flocking towards the fireplace and curling up in one big dogpile. “Don’t you think they’re adorable?”

Peter shook his head . “Absolutely not!” He declared, wrinkling his nose. “Their beaks really hurt when they bite ….”

“Where did they come from?” Remus asked as he cautiously moved into the common room. After bowing to the hippogriff on Sirius' shoulder, he gently stroked it.

“The Forbidden Forest,” James said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Prongs?” Remus raised an eyebrow as they watched James sit down on the sofa in front of the fire and prop his feet up on the low coffee table. “What do you mean they’re from the Forbidden Forest? Are you telling me this is Hagrid’s herd?”

“I’m doing him a favour, okay?” James shrugged again before he let out a yawn. Peter knew that was a sign that the conversation was over and despite any of their best efforts, they wouldn’t get another word out of their deer friend that day.

Peter sat at the table, a knife and fork in each hand as he stared at the pillow that was on his plate. He didn’t know why he was eating a pillow, but he knew that he wanted to and that he was starving. He cut a piece off and stuffed it into his mouth before chewing. His jaw seemed to be working overtime yet the pillow didn’t seem to be breaking down at all.

“Peter! Hey! Can you die a little more quietly?” A voice yelled, waking him up with a jolt.

He spat out a load of feathers as he realised that there was a load of hippogriffs on his bed and that he had not actually been eating his pillow, but inhaling a load of their feathers.

“Why are these things on my bed?” He asked with a groan as he pushed three of them off his pillow and picked it up.

“We told you, they’re yours.” Sirius mumbled sleepily. “You gotta let them sleep on your bed.”

“I guess I’ll take the floor then.” Peter complained as he all but rolled off of the bed and onto the hard ground. The floor was cold - as all castle floors were - but that had to be better than having another nightmare about eating pillows, right?

The next morning, Peter’s bed was mercifully empty, and so were the other beds. He rolled his eyes as he realised that they had gone to breakfast without him. He got himself up, showered, and dressed before going to join them.

To his surprise though, they weren’t in the Great Hall, which after some thought he supposed made sense as it would be near impossible to hide a whole herd of hippogriffs in such a public place. He shrugged it off and decided that he better grab himself some food. There was no telling where the end point of this elaborate prank was and part of him was afraid to find out, so the more distance that he kept, the better for now.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard an all too familiar squack erupting from the Entrance Hall. It was just the one at first, but enough to grab the attention of all his fellow classmates.

Silence reigned for a few beats afterwards before a low murmuring as they all seemed to try and figure out what the noise was. Unfortunately for Peter, he already knew. He cringed as more squacking came from the entrance hall.

“Who-” Professor McGonagall’s voice boomed as the doors burst open and banged off the walls. “-is responsible for these?!”

The entire student body turned to look at the professor as she entered the hall, followed by a line of the tiny hippogriffs. His peers laughed but Peter turned white. He knew that as soon as she saw him, she’d blame him, considering none of the other Marauders were in sight.

The hippogriffs did look happy though, which amused Peter. They followed Professor McGonagall through the Great Hall, all the way up to her usual seat behind the teachers table. At this point, the only sound in the hall was the squacking of the little hippogriffs and the clip-clopping of their tiny hooves on the stone floor. 

Peter kept his head down, but after several moments and no shout of his name, it appeared that he'd managed to get away scot-free. None of the hippogriffs seemed to have recognised him, or if they had, they appeared far too infatuated with Professor McGonagall to care.

They all swarmed around her feet once she was seated, with some even jumping onto her lap and the table in order to snuggle closer to her. Peter couldn't help but smirk. Maybe tonight they'd sleep in her bed and not in his.

He finished his breakfast in peace and decided that he best go find his friends. He had no idea if the hippogriffs adopting McGonagall as their new mama was part of the plan or if they had simply lost control of the prank.

He headed out into the grounds, deciding that the best place to start searching was probably Hagrid's Hut. James had mentioned something about doing Hagrid a favour, after all.

"What do ya mean ‘you lost 'em?’" Peter could hear Hagrid before he even passed the first vegetable patch. He sniggered to himself as he headed up the path to the hut. While he knew that neither James or Sirius worried about getting into trouble, he also knew that there was something about letting a friend down that wounded the pair of them deeply.

He tapped his fingers along the window ledge while he listened to James’ hurried explanation - the hippogriffs weren't lost, he claimed, they were just temporarily misplaced and the situation was under control. James was pretty good at getting people to believe him even when he was full of shit, so Hagrid didn't yell again, sadly meaning that Peter could no longer eavesdrop. He hummed to himself before knocking on the door, which was opened within moments.

Sirius looked more than a little flustered as he let Peter in. "Where've you been?" He demanded as if he hadn't disappeared and left Peter sleeping on the dorm room floor.

"At breakfast." Peter answered with an innocent shrug as he dropped down into an armchair, wincing slightly when an all too familiar squack came from behind his seat. "You've still got one here then?"

"Yeah. That's Can." James said with a nod before he paused and studied Peter carefully. "What do you mean 'still'?" He asked slowly, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. "What do you know about the others?" 

Peter grinned like the Cheshire cat . For once in his life, he knew something that they didn't.

"Okay Can. This is your chance." James held the hippogriff in his hands up to his eye level. "You know what you've got to do."

Peter tried not to laugh at the fact that James was giving a miniature hippogriff a pep talk. He knew that this particular mission was important, that they needed to somehow get the rest of the hippogriff flock out of the Great Hall. James and Sirius kept going on about a time crunch, but Peter didn't really know what they meant by that. He just knew that the hippogriffs couldn't stay with Professor McGonagall forever.

"I believe in you," were James' final words to the hippogriff as he set Can down on the floor. 

The four Marauders watched, following closely as the hippogriff trotted confidently through the doors of the Great Hall, and then they waited. The plan relied upon the herd of hippogriffs all following Can away from McGonagall and out of the Hall. (Peter didn't really have any faith in the plan at all, but he had learned over the years just to keep his mouth shut.) Remus had assured him on more than one occasion that eventually, if they made enough of them, James and Sirius would learn from their mistakes. Peter had stopped wondering just how many mistakes were needed to finally be enough.

They waited for five minutes, listening intently for the sound of the hippogriff stampede that never came.

"Wormtail, you're up." Sirius abruptly informed the shorter boy as he pushed him through the door roughly. 

Peter staggered and straightened up, feeling like a deer caught in the headlights as he stood stiffly in front of the full Great Hall. The hippogriffs were still on the table with McGonagall, who made eye contact with him. He felt his resolve begin to crumble under her steely gaze.

"Mr Pettigrew?"

A piercing whistle came from behind him and suddenly the hippogriffs were all jumping from the table, their feathered forms growing bigger as they ran toward the open door. Peter jumped to the side to allow them past, his eyes widening as chaos erupted all around him.

He was so busy watching the stampede of hippogriffs flock past that he didn't see what was making nearby students scream, until James entered the Great Hall and announced loudly "Hey! Can found Noodle!" and Peter turned, shocked to see that two fully grown hippogriffs had overturned the Slytherin table and were grooming each other's glossy feathers.


End file.
